Mom is not to be blamed

One of the most frequent complaints I hear about contemporary art is that it isn’t accessible – people don’t understand it. One of my own friends even said to me recently that he enjoyed seeing my early work — paintings — because he understood it, but he apologized that he hasn’t been to any of my subsequent exhibitions of video and installation because he was afraid the work would be “too conceptual,” and he wouldn’t get it.

Two posts ago, commenter johnmcd admonished those in the art world, remarking “These people make their mark by spunking pretentiousness up the wall and denouncing anyone that doesn’t ‘get’ it.”

I have to agree. Somewhere along the way, art – certain kinds of art, at least – evolved into a phenomena with its own private language, and one that has felt to most more exclusionary than inclusive. Much of it has been alienating, and even infuriating in its perplexity.

But I was most intrigued by my friend Jim’s comment — that he understood, and was rewarded by looking at painting. This underscores what painter Squeak Carnwath has said about the medium:

I think that [painting] is more complex (than any other media), I think it’s the queen of the arts. I think that it’s a philosophical enterprise. It’s something that you can’t bump into. You can’t sit on it, you can’t trip over it…and we think that what we see on that flat surface is some kind of reality…we believe that that thin film of pigment – it’s really dirt and a binder on a flat surface – is a real thing, and a real place. And a real thought…I feel like it’s a stand in for the body — and the body to me is not just corporeal.

Thought is involved in it, and the way we sort of understand the world.

I’ve been a longtime admirer not only of Carnwath’s paintings but her entire art practice and philosophy. It embodies what I think all art should do – not confuse or obfuscate, but instead, translate and share life through the unique lens of the artist. And in that process, enrich our own lives by provoking thought and enlightenment about our experience in the world.

The Oakland Museum of California Art currently has an amazing and extensive fifteen year survey organized by curator Karen Tsujimoto of Squeak Carnwath’s artwork that you shouldn’t miss – it’s been up since April, and ends this Sunday. When asked by Michael Krasny during an interview on NPR about her work being personal and about her own life, she replied, “I feel like it’s not just mine, I’m kind of a radio receiver for information. My life is sort of everybody’s life, and I’m just kind of willing to be the conduit for it…It is personal but it’s also not…I get information that’s not mine but about how we are in the world and that ends up in the paintings, as well.”

The visual vocabulary in Carnwath’s paintings is rich with symbolism, emotion, and candor – she seems to be tapping into her own psyche, and in that exercise, highlighting our own. Her style and technique is raw and elemental, and many of her works are akin to a visualization of id’s battles with the ego and superego – but one where the id happily gets equal say in the matter. In “Promise” (shown above), hundreds of painted incantations of “I will be good. I will be good. I will try to be good,” are semi-obliterated with a graffiti-like “SHUT UP SHUT UP” and a smaller notation, “Move over, Freud, mom is not to be blamed.” And “Good Luck” includes its own “guilt-free zone.”

I am not the subject of the show, the paintings are. I’m really clear that the paintings are the things that exist, that I try to be as much a speck as possible, and kind of be a witness.

Painting is complex in that it’s not a real thing but it’s kind of making visible, or invisible how we think or feel, or even intuit the world in ways we don’t even understand. And I feel this about all art making: it’s a way of building self or understanding a self. I think all human’s jobs, all of us, are supposed to try to become the best self that we can be, and be as honest as we can about that, and try to take risks and question what it is to be here. And painting and all art making embodies that.

I feel that all art-making is a kind of quest – a kind of wish-making. I really love that about it, that you can kind of set your sights on something and see if it works. If we’re not willing to take risks and reveal something about ourselves, it’s not generous. Every mark is personal.

An artist has to be kind of naked, open. They can’t shut off themselves.

The one thing about painting is that it can’t be photographed. You can see an image, but it’s not the real thing. It should be more about the ideas and the feelings, and trying to embody kind of an activity of thought and felt responses.

Painting — I feel like it’s an important medium that’s never going to die. It’s always intriguing to people. I don’t think it is an ordinary object — it’s imbued with this philosophical kind of premise, something that’s not real, but it is real.

It does fill in the gaps. I think language is not enough. I think painting is a kind of thing that’s beneath language…it can’t even be explained. Everyone tries to say what art is — no one has one answer that works for everything.